This course explores the definition and evolution of a national literary tradition in the United States from the Civil War to the present. We will examine a variety of issues arising from the historical and cultural contexts of the 19th and 20th centuries, the formal study of literature, and the competing constructions of American identity. Students will consider canonical texts, as well as those less frequently recognized as central to the American literary tradition, in an effort to foster original insights i9nto the definition, content, and the shape of ?literature? in the United States.

In this course we will read narratives of individual and collective cultural transformations from the colonial and early republican periods in American literature. We will trace throughout these narratives various figurations of "American" subjectivity, such as the captive and the redeemed; the slave, the servant, and the freeman; the alien and the citizen; the foreign and the native. Through such textual figures, we will explore as well the cultural production of a broader narrative of the ?imagined community? of the nation.

Readers and spectators are always implicitly involved in the creation of an artwork?perhaps as interpreters or as respondents. But what happens when that work explicitly invites one to collaborate in its fictional world, to act in its arena? We live in an increasingly interactive environment, where even our appliances respond to our spoken requests. How might we employ a critical awareness of our relationships to these new technologies and the people, places, and things with which they connect us?

Analysis of problems of form, elements of genre, style and development of themes of stories and poems, written by class members and in class texts. Lecture, discussion, 5 poems, 2 stories, 2 essays. (Gen. Ed. AL)

Analysis of problems of form, elements of genre, style and development of themes of stories and poems, written by class members and in class texts. Lecture, discussion, 5 poems, 2 stories, 2 essays. (Gen. Ed. AL)

Analysis of problems of form, elements of genre, style and development of themes of stories and poems, written by class members and in class texts. Lecture, discussion, 5 poems, 2 stories, 2 essays. (Gen. Ed. AL)

Analysis of problems of form, elements of genre, style and development of themes of stories and poems, written by class members and in class texts. Lecture, discussion, 5 poems, 2 stories, 2 essays. (Gen. Ed. AL)

A study of Shakespeare's dramatic art and poetic style through a representative selection of plays. Students may earn degree credit for only one of ENGLISH 221 and 222. (Gen.Ed. AL)

A study of Shakespeare's dramatic art and poetic style through a representative selection of plays. Students may earn degree credit for only one of ENGLISH 221 and 222. (Gen.Ed. AL)

A study of Shakespeare's dramatic art and poetic style through a representative selection of plays. Students may earn degree credit for only one of ENGLISH 221 and 222. (Gen.Ed. AL)